Underscoring the precarious plight of foreign workers in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi government Wednesday (Jan. 8) executed a young Sri Lankan housemaid convicted of killing an infant in her care, following what human rights groups have called a flawed trial.
Despite high-level clemency pleas from the Sri Lankan government, Rizana Nafeek, who was 17 at the time of the baby boy’s death in 2005, was executed in Dawadmi, a small town outside Riyadh where she’d been incarcerated for several years, according to a statement by the Saudi Interior Ministry. Saudi executions are usually by beheading.